And perhaps most strikingly, the law allows the government to detain any foreigners whom the attorney general certifies as endangering national security.
Carrie Wibben, who heads the counterintelligence and security directorate for the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, wrote to the inspector general certifying that she found "no factual errors" in the inspectors' findings.
The law also expands to seven days, from three, the period for emergency wiretaps on Americans without a court order if the attorney general certifies there is probable cause to believe the target is linked to terrorism.
Clinton's executive order of Feb. 9, 1995, for example, allowed such wiretaps — but only if the Attorney General certifies that the search will not involve "the premises, information, material, or property of a United States person".
Emergency legislation rushed through Congress - the USA Patriot Act - allows the indefinite detention of "non-citizens" once the attorney general "certifies" he has "reasonable grounds to believe" the individual is engaged in terrorist activities or endangers national security, the report said.
By law, this country can prosecute the murderer of a U.S. citizen overseas when the U.S. attorney general certifies that the murder "was intended to coerce, intimidate or retaliate against a government or a civilian population".
Once the attorney general certifies the initiative, the reform groups will have until July 7 , 2014 to acquire 62,507 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot for the November 2014 elections.
Under the Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988, the Attorney General certifies whether the employee/defendant was acting within the scope of his or her employment at the time of the alleged act giving rise to the lawsuit.
Asserting the privilege requires the director of national intelligence and the attorney general to certify legally the potential harm to national security.
"The attorney general can certify that the moon is made of green cheese, but that will neither make it so nor advance scientific knowledge," Professor Freedman said.
